PDF-(EBOOK)-Why the Church Needs Bioethics: A Guide to Wise Engagement with Life’s Challenges

In a world where incredible medical technologies are possible does can do mean should do Why the Church Needs Bioethics helps you understand and constructively engage bioethical challenges with the resources of Christian wisdom and ministry Three rich and truetolife case studies illustrate the urgency of such bioethical issues as reproductive and genetic technologies abortion forgoing treatment assisted suicide stem cell research and human enhancement technologies Leading Christian voices bring biblical and theological perspective to bear on the incredible medical technologies available today mobilize useful insights from health care law and business and demonstrate the powerful ways the church can make a difference through counseling pastoral care intercultural ministry preaching and education This book equips students church and lay leaders and people in healthrelated fields with the knowledge to make faithful bioethical decisions and to help foster a world where human beings are shown respect as people created in the image of God Contributors to Why the Church Needs Bioethics include leading Bible and theology scholars such as D A Carson and Kevin Vanhoozer leaders in the areas of preaching Greg Scharf and ethics Scott Rae and 15 other experts in the fields of biblicaltheological studies ministry communication business law healthcare and bioethics. October 11, 2016. Catherine Cunning. Director of Development Cathedral Corporation. Presented by. Introduction. Parish . communications make or break parishioner engagement.. Engaged parishioners are key to the strength and growth of your parish’s stewardship and mission.. Buddhism. Always remember the . aspects of religion. , and the . adherents. !. What is the . ultimate purpose. ? Religions seek to connect adherents to the transcendent (i.e. God, enlightenment, . etc.  . What and Why…First Priority.  . Connect the church to reach the campus for Christ! .  . Gospel proclamation and Gospel equipping!. What is a WIN?. . What is a WIN?. Student getting saved and then . Programme Director in . Bioethics and Medical Law. St. Mary’s University College . What is ‘Ethics’?. Ethics is ‘the study and justification of conduct’. (Fraenkel 1977) . Morality is . the . Baby Jesus, even while you were only a little baby you experienced both acceptance from the wise men and rejection from Herod. The wise men and Herod had two opposing attitudes, searching for God and being closed to God. Baby Jesus, we see that the wise men were blessed in their search for you by finding you. We are searching for you too, we want to come ever closer to you. Help us to draw ever closer to you and if we are closed to you like Herod, help us to open so that we can find you. Let us ask Jesus to help us in drawing closer to him...... Just about everyone will face a difficult bioethics decision at some point. In this book a theologian, ethicist, and lawyer equips Christians to make such decisions based on biblical truth, wisdom, and virtue.Though a relatively new discipline, bioethics has generated extraordinary interest due to a number of socially pressing issues. Bioethics and the Christian Life places bioethics within the holistic context of the Christian life, both developing a general Christian approach to making bioethics decisions and addressing a number of specific, controversial areas of bioethics.Clear, concise, and well-organized, the book is divided into three sections. The first lays the theological foundation for bioethics decision making and discusses the importance of wisdom and virtue in working through these issues. The second section addresses beginning-of-life issues, such as abortion, stem-cell research, and infertility treatments. The third section covers end-of-life issues, such as living wills, accepting and refusing medical treatment, and treatment of patients in permanent vegetative states. Dr. Farhat Moazam has written a wonderful book, based on her extraordinary first-hand study.... [S]he is an exceptionally gifted and evocative writer. Her book not only has the attributes of a superb piece of intellectual work, but it has literary artistic merit. --Renee C. Fox, Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences at the University of PennsylvaniaThis is an ethnographic study of live, related kidney donation in Pakistan, based on Farhat Moazam\'s participant-observer research conducted at a public hospital. Her narrative is both a thick description of renal transplant cases and the cultural, ethical, and family conflicts that accompany them, and an object lesson in comparative bioethics. Tod Chambers suggests that literary theory is a crucial component in the complete understanding of bioethics. The Fiction of Bioethics explores the medical case study and distills the idea that bioethicists study real-life cases, while philosophers contemplate fictional accounts. This book provides the theory, practice, and hands-on tools needed to resolve the medical care disputes that regularly entangle patients, family members, physicians, and other health care professionals. While these disputes may indeed raise ethical issues, they are first and foremost conflicts among individuals with complex, strongly held positions. Building on this fresh perspective, the authors make a thoughtful, systematic case for the use of mediation skills and techniques to achieve principled resolutions to troubling, often life-and-death questions. Bioethics Mediation: A Guide to Shaping Shared Solutions is a commonsense introduction to mediation for bioethics committees, consultants, and other health care professionals, making cogent arguments for the need for mediation in the medical context. It is also an invaluable guide for mediators wishing to learn more about bioethics and the complex medical conflicts so prevalent in contemporary health care. An examination of the ethical issues raised by the possibility of human life extension, including its desirability, unequal access, and the threat of overpopulation.Life extension—slowing or halting human aging—is now being taken seriously by many scientists. Although no techniques to slow human aging yet exist, researchers have successfully slowed aging in yeast, mice, and fruit flies, and have determined that humans share aging-related genes with these species. In New Methuselahs, John Davis offers a philosophical discussion of the ethical issues raised by the possibility of human life extension. Why consider these issues now, before human life extension is a reality? Davis points out that, even today, we are making policy and funding decisions about human life extension research that have ethical implications. With New Methuselahs, he provides a comprehensive guide to these issues, offering policy recommendations and a qualified defense of life extension.After an overview of the ethics and science of life extension, Davis considers such issues as the desirability of extended life whether refusing extended life is a form of suicide the Malthusian threat of overpopulation equal access to life extension and life extension and the right against harm. In the end, Davis sides neither with those who argue that there are no moral objections to life enhancement nor with those who argue that the moral objections are so strong that we should never develop it. Davis argues that life extension is, on balance, a good thing and that we should fund life extension research aggressively, and he proposes a feasible and just policy for preventing an overpopulation crisis. Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the complex demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics. The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research. The questions of whether there is a shared nature common to all human beings and, if so, what essential qualities define this nature are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain the subject of perennial interest and controversy. This book offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence-that is, with what is a human being identical or what types of parts are necessary for a human being to exist: an immaterial mind, a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul? It also considers the criterion of identity for a human being across time and change-that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Jason Eberl\'s investigation presents and defends a theoretical perspective from the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Advancing beyond descriptive historical analysis, this book places Aquinas\'s account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. There are practical implications of exploring these theories as they inform various conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence-at conception, during gestation, or after birth-and how we ought to define death for human beings. Finally, each of these viewpoints offers a distinctive rationale as to whether, and if so how, human beings may survive death. This book\'s central argument is that the Thomistic account of human nature includes several desirable features that other theories lack and offers a cohesive portrait of one\'s continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond. Neonatal intensive care has been one of the most morally controversial areas of medicine during the past thirty years. This study examines the interconnected development of four key aspects of neonatal intensive care: medical advances, ethical analysis, legal scrutiny, and econometric evaluation.The authors assert that a dramatic shift in societal attitudes toward newborns and their medical care was a stimulus for and then a result of developments in the medical care of newborns. They divide their analysis into three eras of neonatal intensive care. The first, characterized by the rapid advance of medical technology from the late 1960s to the Baby Doe case of 1982, established neonatal care as a legitimate specialty of medical care, separate from the rest of pediatrics and medicine. During this era, legal scholars and moral philosophers debated the relative importance of parental autonomy, clinical prognosis, and children\'s rights.The second era, beginning with the Baby Doe case (a legal battle that spurred legislation mandating that infants with debilitating birth defects be treated unless the attending physician deems efforts to prolong life futile), stimulated efforts to establish a consistent federal standard on neonatal care decisions and raised important moral questions concerning the meaning of futility and of inhumane treatment. In the third era, a consistent set of decision-making criteria and policies was established. These policies were the result of the synergy and harmonization of newly agreed upon ethical principles and newly discovered epidemiological characteristics of neonatal care.Tracing the field\'s recent history, notable advances, and considerable challenges yet to be faced, the authors present neonatal bioethics as a paradigm of complex conversation among physicians, philosophers, policy makers, judges, and legislators which has led to responsible societal oversight of a controversial medical innovation. Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the complex demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics. The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research.